With the economy struggling to find its foothold, many businesses and individuals are facing the greatest financial concerns in recent memory. In these tough times, protecting valuable and increasingly scarce economic resources has become a monumental task. Losing assets to fraud may be enough to send an already struggling organization to the financial brink.

Unfortunately, many of the situations that abound in a turbulent economy are factors that can lead to occupational fraud. Employees are undergoing financial pressures as their houses decline in value and their retirement funds shrink.

Organizations in nearly every sector are cutting expenses and laying off workers. Stock prices have been dropping. Morale is down. Fear is up. The combination of these conditions may create an environment ripe for fraudulent activity.

Although both logic and experience tell us that the threat of fraud could be heightened in the present economy, it is nearly impossible to gauge the true amount of fraud occurring at any given time. The vast majority of fraudsters take action to conceal their misdeeds. Consequently, some frauds may never be caught.

Other schemes may be perpetrated for years before they are uncovered. And, even among those that are detected, a large number of cases will never be reported, allowing them to remain hidden from the public eye. Thus, no exact measure of the level of fraud during the current recession can exist.

Nonetheless, examining the association between fraud and a weakened economy is an important endeavor. To get to know how the economy is affected by fraud the Institute of Forensics & ICT Security are the experts who are in the trenches of fighting fraud on a daily basis.  With the Institute you will gain some insight into the correlation between economic downswings and fraudulent activity.